


brightest of lights, darkest of shadows

by ailurea



Series: til the stars evaporate (sheith ficlets) [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Supernatural AU - Freeform, angel shiro, demon keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 05:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17760965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailurea/pseuds/ailurea
Summary: The war for heaven concludes, as does Shiro’s relationship with the demon he contracted to help him win.





	brightest of lights, darkest of shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [LightningStrikes's SPN AU](https://twitter.com/L_Strikes_art/status/1036655612317200384).
> 
> Originally written as a Twitter thread. (I preserved the structure here because the pieces I wrote as tweets don’t quite work the same in straight prose.)

“Think of me, won’t you, Feathers?” Keith says as Shiro dons his clothes. He’s lazing on the bed, satisfied—he’s received his payment; Shiro’s fulfilled his vice.  
  
“I won’t.” Shiro’s lying—his entire being is forever seared with Keith’s touch, his mind with Keith’s smoky drawl. 

.

Keith laughs. The sound is both beautiful and grating, much like the demon himself.  
  
He’s too alluring for Shiro’s good. “Not even you can tempt me to fall.”  
  
“Of course.” Keith’s smile ices over. “The great Shirogane would never.”  
  
Shiro bristles. “What does that mean?” 

.

Keith’s lip curls. “Nothing at all. Here, for you. A gift to remember me by.” He tosses it over—  
  
A vial of angelic grace.  
  
Shiro’s heart pounds. This is what a demon like Keith can do: strip the very essence of an angel from their core. It's a threat of what Keith can do to him.

.

He knew demons took advantage of the war to hunt angels unnoticed. It hurts to know Keith was one of them.  
  
“Which angel did you kill for this?”  
  
“I wonder.” Keith’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Well, I don’t need it anymore. Consider it a gift. Keep it with you, all right?” 

.

Shiro returns to heaven with grace in his hand and doubt in his heart. His first memory is waking up in the midst of a war, missing centuries of his life. Now he fears—  
  
“Matt. Before I lost my memories—did I fall?”  
  
Matt startles. “You remember?”  
  
Confirmation. 

.

“Why did I do it?”  
  
“For you? Only the purest of reasons. Love.”  
  
He fell in love with a human. “I tore out my grace?”  
  
“You made a deal with Lotor.” It makes sense—in a twisted way, stripping grace is easier for demons. “He reincarnated you for a lifetime, so you could be with—” 

.

Shiro doesn’t have to hear him say the name. His heart knows that there’s only one person it could be, and the knowledge makes something hot and unpleasant curl in his core.  
  
Demons were all human once, after all.  
  
“Keith.” The name is both a prayer and a curse. “I fell for Keith.” 

.

And Matt—pauses, and looks at him. He’s searching for something, and when he doesn’t find it, his expression grows somber.  
  
The feeling in Shiro’s core curdles into dread. 

.

“You really don’t remember,” Matt says. “I thought some part of you knew. I thought that’s why you made that deal with him.”  
  
“What are you talking about?”  
  
“You didn’t fall for Keith, Shiro. He fell for you.” 

.

There’s only one way that sentence makes sense. “Keith was an angel.”  
  
“Your best friend,” Matt says. “He knew about your deal. He knew when Lotor double-crossed you. When your human died but Lotor decided to keep your grace—”  
  
“—Keith traded it for his own.” 

.

Matt smiles a little. “So you do remember something. I knew Lotor couldn’t take it all away.”  
  
The details still elude him, but the resonance of the bond between him and Keith is too strong to slip away now that Matt’s helped him take the first step towards remembering. 

.

Shiro doesn’t voice what he knows of Keith’s devotion: if anyone tampered with Shiro’s memories, it was Keith, to save Shiro from the pain of knowing what his actions had wrought. 

.

“I did this to him.”  
  
“You didn’t.”  
  
It’s kind of Matt to say, but untrue. Shiro owns his mistakes. “It was irresponsible of me to leave.”  
  
Matt sighs. “Look, we angels don’t experience love often. It makes us do really irresponsible things when we do.” 

.

Shiro thinks of Keith—Keith, irresponsibly and irrevocably in love with someone who was giving himself away for the sake of someone else.  
  
And then Keith gave himself away, too. 

.

The vial of grace is heavy in his hand.  
  
_Keep it with you_ , Keith had said, and Shiro had thought it a mockery, a reminder that there have been other angels Keith has stripped bare.  
  
Now he realizes there haven’t been.  
  
The grace inside is Keith’s own. 

.

He doesn’t need to ask if Keith remembers. The vial in his hand is proof, and Keith’s words—that he doesn’t need it anymore.  
  
A fallen angel can rise again if they regain their grace, but for a demon who has already lost their soul, heaven is unreachable.  
  
Keith is beyond saving. 

.

Shiro knows what he’s getting himself into the next time he summons Keith.  
  
Keith does not.  
  
Shiro can see now what he missed before, when he wasn’t looking. Tired cracks beneath Keith’s intentionally grungy veneer. Rough edges from centuries of grinding himself into someone new. 

.

“Shirogane.”  
  
Keith’s different. He doesn’t come close; doesn’t drape himself across Shiro’s body. He stands tense with a hand on his hellhound, looking ready to curl into smoke in a breath.  
  
“I’ve already given you everything,” he says. “What the hell else do you want from me?” 

.

“My memories.”  
  
Keith recoils, then laughs, bitter. “Right. All those nights—“  
  
The nights they’d laid together, Keith taking payment in the form of angelic quintessence, straight from the source because Shiro couldn’t keep himself away.  
  
“I’m not surprised you’d rather forget.” 

.

“No.” Shiro holds up Keith’s grace.  
  
It’s been centuries. Keith’s changed. But some part of him—a part that loves Shiro—is still there, otherwise he wouldn’t have done all of this.  
  
Shiro feels the echoes of that love deep in his own grace, but it’s muted. Dim. He wants it back. 

.

“You asked me what I wanted?” Shiro steps closer and makes the first move, resting his hand against Keith’s cheek. “I want my memories back, Keith. I want you back.” 

.

Keith’s eyes are wide in the light of his grace, and he looks young for the first time since Shiro’s met him again.  
  
Shiro pulls him close, holding tight as Keith trembles against him.  
  
He murmurs, soft, against Keith’s ear:  
  
“Let’s make a deal.” 

**Author's Note:**

> [(view the original on twitter)](https://twitter.com/ailurea/status/1095189783809118209)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
